Freddy Goes to Florida (8 page)

As soon as Jinx saw his friends, he tried to look as if he had done it on purpose.

“There!” he said. “I guess you won't dare
me
to do anything again! I guess I did it, didn't I? I guess
you
haven't got much to say!”

But the little girl jumped down from Hank's back and went over to him and began slapping him good and hard.

“You bad cat!” she cried. “You bad,
bad
cat! Where are my dollies?”

Jinx made himself as small as possible and put his head down between his paws and let her spank him. It didn't hurt as much as she thought it did, and as he said afterwards to Freddy—“it knocked all the water out of my fur.”

But Alice and Emma dived for the dolls and brought them up and laid them on the bank to dry. And after a while, when the little girl was tired of spanking Jinx, she put them into the carriage again and Mrs. Wiggins pushed it back up the hill for her. But the little girl rode up on Hank's back.

After that, Jinx didn't talk so much. And if he did begin to boast, all the animals had to do was to say: “Kidnapper! Doll-stealer! Who got spanked by a girl?” And he would curl up and pretend to go to sleep.

XI

And now at last one day when the animals had been walking all morning through wild and swampy woods, they came out at the top of a long slope that, went down to a wide valley in which were many green trees and comfortable-looking, white houses. A soft wind blew over the valley, and puffed into their faces a sweet delicious perfume, that none of them had ever smelt before. They sniffed the air delightedly.

“Mmmmmm!” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Isn't that good? It's better than clover. I wonder what it is.”

“I know,” said Jack. “I've smelt it at weddings. See all those little green trees down there? They're orange-trees, and that smell is orange-blossoms.”

“Look! Look!” squealed Freddy. “There's a palm-tree!”

“It's Florida!” shouted Jinx.

And all the animals shouted together: “Florida!” so that they could be heard for miles, and Alice and Emma hopped about and quacked and flapped their wings, and Charles crowed, and the dogs barked, and Mrs. Wiggins mooed, and Hank, the old, white horse, danced round like a young colt until his legs got all tangled up and he fell down and everybody laughed. Even the spiders raced round and round the web they had spun between Mrs. Wiggins's horns, and the mice capered and pranced.

“So this is Florida!” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Well. well!”

Then they started down the slope into Florida. And as they went, Freddy made up a song:

The weather grew torrider and torrider
,

And the orange-blossoms smelt horrider and horrider
,

As we marched down into Florida
.

“But the orange-blossoms
don't
smell horrid,” said Robert.

“I know it,” said Freddy. “But there isn't any other word that rhymes.”

“Well, make up another song, then,” said Robert.

So Freddy sang:

Oh, the winding road to Florida

Is a dusty road, and long,

But we animals gay have cheered the way

With many a merry song
.

Our hearts were bold
—
but our homes were cold
.

And that is why we've come

To Florida, to Florida
,

From our far-off northern home
.

In Florida, in Florida
,

Where the orange-blossom blows
,

Where the alligator sings so sweet
,

And the sweet-potato grows;

Oh, that is the place where I would be
,

And that is where I am
—

In Florida, in Florida
,

As happy as a clam
.

They all liked this song much better, and as they went along they sang lustily. They were so glad to have reached Florida at last that they forgot all about stopping to rest at noon, and they marched on until nearly three o'clock. Then Mrs. Wiggins sank down under a tree beside the road.

“I can't go another step!” she said. “I'm in a dripping perspiration. Charles, I'd take it kindly if you'd fan me with your wing for a few minutes.”

So they all sat down and Charles very kindly fanned Mrs. Wiggins until she had cooled off. And as they were all pretty tired and hot, they decided to camp there that night and think about what they were going to do in Florida. And then in the morning they could go and begin doing it.

So they camped under the orange-trees and discussed all the things they could do, and at last they decided to go to the sea-shore, as Freddy said he understood the sea-bathing was very fine there.

“But how can we find the sea-shore?” asked Robert. “You ought to have had that robin draw it on the map.”

Freddy said it would be easy to find because Florida was a peninsula.

“What's a peninsula?” asked Jack, and Henrietta said: “Oh, don't ask him! He's just trying to show off.”

But Freddy said: “A peninsula is a piece of land that is almost surrounded by water. That means that if you walk far enough in any direction but one, you will come to the ocean.”

“Yes,” said Robert, “but how do we know which direction is the one we ought
not
to walk in?”

“Why, the direction we came from, stupid,” said Freddy. And he drew a little map on the ground and showed the animals what he meant.

So the next morning they started out to find the ocean. They travelled for four days before they saw it, away off in the distance, glittering and sparkling in the sunlight, and it was still another day before they came down to a broad beach of yellow sand and saw the great sheet of water stretching away before them for miles and miles. They just stood and looked at it for a long time, for none of them had ever seen anything like it before. And they rushed down the beach and swam out into the water.

So for a month they lived by the side of the ocean and rested from their long journey. They found an old barn not very far from the shore, and they cleaned it up and all lived there together happily. Every day at four o'clock they went in for a dip in the surf, and then they would lie round on the sand and talk until supper-time. It was a very lazy and pleasant life that they lived in Florida.

But after a while they got tired of doing nothing and began to long for new adventures. “Besides, we ought to travel round and see the country,” said Charles. “When we get home, and everybody asks us what Florida is like, we want to be able to tell them.”

So they said good-bye to the sea-shore, and to the horseshoe crabs and jelly-fish, who had made things so pleasant for them during their stay, and set out for a tour of the state.

XII

During the next two months they visited all the principal points of interest in Florida, and saw all there was to see. They visited Palm Beach and the Everglades and Miami and the Big Cypress Swamp. And it was on the way across a corner of the swamp that they had a very exciting adventure.

It happened this way. When they first came to the swamp, most of the animals were afraid and did not want to go into it at all, for it stretched for miles and miles, and there were no roads or paths, and there was no firm ground to walk on, only water and mud and the great twisted, gnarly cypress roots. It was dark, too, because the trees grew so thick.

But Jinx said: “Oh, come on! Let's see what it's like. We don't have to go very far in. What are you afraid of?”

And so they started in.

At first it wasn't very hard walking, but soon the mud and water got deeper and the trees thicker together. And after a while longer there wasn't anything to walk on at all—only water and trees.

“I'm going back,” said Mrs. Wiggins. And the other animals said they were too. Even Jinx agreed they couldn't go any farther.

But when they started to go back, they found that they hadn't the slightest idea which way to go. They had turned and twisted in and out among the trees so many times that they didn't know from which direction they had come. The water covered their footprints so they couldn't follow them. And over their heads the branches were so thick that they couldn't see the sun.

“Now we
are
in a mess!” said Henrietta, who had been riding on Hank's back. “I hope you're satisfied, Jinx!”

“It won't help any to call names,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Come along, let's try this direction. One way is as good as another, and this looks as if it might be right.”

And so they went on, with Mrs. Wiggins in the lead. It was very dark and dismal. The water was black, and long beards of grey moss hung down from the branches of the trees. Again and again they had to swim, and the animals who could not swim climbed on the larger animals' backs.

At last it did seem as if they were coming out on dry land. Ahead of them they could see sunlight through the tree trunks, and they floundered and stumbled onward as fast as they could go. In a few minutes they came out on the bank of what seemed to be a small canal, and beyond the canal was a grassy meadow, green and pleasant in the bright sun.

“Well, this certainly isn't the way we came,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “But, my word! that grass looks good! I guess we could get away with a few mouthfuls of that, eh, Hank? Come along, animals, let's swim over. It's something to stand on, at any rate.”

“Look out! Don't bump your noses on those logs,” said Jinx, pointing with one claw to what looked like a lot of tree trunks, lying half under water in the middle of the canal.

So they all swam over. But as they were climbing out on the farther bank, Henrietta began to cackle excitedly. “Look! Look! The logs are all coming to life!”

And sure enough, what they had thought were logs had suddenly started swimming after them. They were alligators!

“I certainly do
not
like this place!” said Mrs. Wiggins. But like most cows, she had a stout heart, and she turned round and lowered her horns and shook them threateningly at the alligators. “Keep away, now!” she said. “We won't stand any nonsense!”

But the alligators only laughed, and one of them said: “Oho! You won't, eh? Well, what did you come into our country for, then?”

“We're peaceable animals,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “and all we ask is to be shown the shortest way out of your country. We are lost, and we shall be very much obliged to you if you will help us find ourselves again. But if you won't help us, we shall have to go on and find our own way out.”

Then all the alligators laughed so hard that two of them choked, and their friends had to whack them on the backs with their tails. And they said: “Do you know where you are? You are on an island in the middle of the alligator country. You can't get away. And to-night we alligators are going to have you for supper.”

The animals saw now that they were indeed in a bad fix. “This is even worse than being fricasseed,” said Charles.

But Freddy, the clever pig, had an idea. And although he was very much scared, he said to the alligators: “Gentlemen, you will make a very great mistake if you eat us. We are not ordinary animals. We are the first animals in the world who ever migrated. We have come from far in the north; thousands of miles we have travelled, to visit your beautiful country, and to take back word of its loveliness to our people. Surely you would not be so inhospitable as to eat us for supper.”

“He speaks very nicely,” said one of the alligators, “but I am sure he would taste even better. He is so round and plump!”

But another one said: “There may be something in what you say, pig. We will take you to the Grandfather of All the Alligators, and you may tell him what you have told us. And perhaps he will let you go. And perhaps he will eat you for supper just the same. But that is for him to decide.”

And so he led them across the island to where the water and the swamp began again on the other side. And he stood on the bank and called: “Oh, Grandfather of All the Alligators, there be strangers here who would have speech with thee.”

Nothing happened for some time, and then there was a bubbling and a boiling of the water, and a huge head, as big as a barrel, appeared, and after the head a body as long as Mrs. Wiggins and Hank and Jack and Robert and Freddy together. It was the Grandfather of All the Alligators, and he was so old that there was green moss growing all over him.

He opened one wise old eye, and his deep grumbling voice said sleepily: “What do they want?”

“They don't want to be eaten for supper,” said the other alligator.

“Eat them for lunch, then,” said the Grandfather of All the Alligators, and began to sink out of sight again.

But Freddy rushed down to the edge of the water and shouted: “Oh, Grandfather of All the Alligators, we are strangers in your beautiful country and we have come thousands of miles to visit you and tell you of our own land, of which you have never heard.”

The Grandfather of All the Alligators opened both eyes and stopped sinking.

“Why didn't you say so in the first place?” he asked. “That alters the case entirely. I hear very little news of the great world in this quiet spot. By all means tell me of your home.”

“Oh, Grandfather of All the—” Freddy began.

But the Grandfather of All the Alligators stopped him. “It will be better,” he said, “if you call me simply grandfather.” And he closed his eyes and sank till everything but his ears was under water, and prepared to listen.

Then Freddy told of the life they had lived up north on Mr. Bean's farm, and of how cold it was in winter, and of their trip to the South. Every time he stopped for breath, the alligators, who were sitting around him in a circle, would say: “Yes, yes; go on!” And Freddy went on until he was tired, and then Jinx took up the story until
he
was tired, and then Charles went on with it. And by the time Charles had finished, and they had told everything they could think of, it was almost sunset.